MCCPS Board of Trustees
Minutes
Facilities Task Force Committee Meeting: November 15, 2022
Date and Time
Tuesday November 15, 2022 at 7:00 PM
Please note that the in-person meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the remote connection.
Committee Members Present
Brad Rogers, Christian Strom, John Romano (remote), Peter Cohen, William Rockwell
Committee Members Absent
Andrea Barlow, Karen Zieff, Nathan Dye
Guests Present
Ariane Purdy, Miika Ebbrell
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
William Rockwell called a meeting of the Facilities Task Force Committee of MCCPS Board of Trustees to order on Tuesday Nov 15, 2022 at 7:02 PM.
C.
Approve Minutes
Brad Rogers made a motion to approve the minutes from Facilities Task Force Committee Meeting: October 18, 2022 on 10-18-22.
Christian Strom seconded the motion.
The committee VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.
II. Architect Interviews
A.
Ebbrell Architecture
- Ebbrell Arcitecture & Design
- About
- Interior focus- don’t do “ground up” (mostly working within existing facilities)
- Experience
- Clearway School in Newton, MA
- “Summer slammer”, modest budget
- Brimmer and May School in Chestnut Hill
- Involved opening up rooms, creative storage solutions
- Pike School in Andover, MA
- 29 East Street in Winchester, MQA
- Mutli-phase project, adaptive reuse, code and accessibility implications
- Budget conscious
- Design/build with a contractor early on- contractor brought Ebbrell in
- Added windows and entrance
- Clearway School in Newton, MA
- MCCPS
- Approx. 14 weeks
- Process
- Code consultant coming in
- MEP narrative included
- Did solicit fee from engineering company
- Contractor
- Will want some kind of schematic design
- Bringing in a contractor early may help manage cost
- Timeline
- Capital campaign 3/27/2023
- Phase I would have Spring/Summer start
- Phases II and III
- Phase II is warehouse, III is bridging school/warehouse (would ideally be over summer
- Questions for FTF/MCCPS Board of Trustees
- How long is approval process
- How about funding intervals?
- Fees
- $17k for architectural services
- MEP/FP narrative $4,950
- Renderings $1,500/per ($4,500 total)
- Cost estimating
- $9,350
- “This appeared steep”
- Questions
- What kind of cost did you build in for conversation?
- Assumptions- 4 in person meetings, 4 virtual
- 4 meetings can be with whoever
- Assumed we don’t want to repeat discovery
- 1 meeting can be capital campaign meeting
- Assumptions- 4 in person meetings, 4 virtual
- Biggest obstacle?
- Ariane- how much will number of fixtures in bathroom eat into usable space
- Miika- we will address envelope appropriately, windows, figuring out ceiling heights (will likely want to bring those down for the classrooms)
- Ariane- this is a bit of a blank canvas… because its relatively new we don’t expect the usual issues with older buildings (ex: things we can’t get to code)
- Peter- bathrooms are a bit of an unknown- we recognize that if the bathrooms, for example, need more space, we want your input as to how this impacts us and what we can do
- Miika- this will be part of test/fit stage
- Ariane- Jess will be helpful with this
- Peter- there are some traffic flow issues with current setup… have you thought about traffic flow in this early stage?
- Ariane- I think the logical move would be going through what would be French room (current 4th grade classroom)
- Peter- looking at this as programmatically, STEM and Music will both help with fundraising… do you have experience doing music space?
- Ariane- yes… space in Salem near Salem State… loading dock performance practice space
- Tabbed someone for acoustic piece, did regular lighting (nothing fancy)
- Would likely bring someone in for acoustics at later stage
- Christian- this makes sense…. We bring in acousticians often
- Christian- I assume we’d want a structural engineer involved?
- Miika- yes, we’d bring someone in. This fee isn’t included in proposal for this preliminary phase
- Brad- to your credit, this is a pretty tight fee, but I see a scenario in which it takes more effort than what’s assumed here… do you have a strategy to control costs in this scenario?
- Ariane- this is just SD to get us to capital campaign
- About 100 hours of time to get us this package
- We typically hit our estimate
- Miika- we typically provide numbers as fixed fee rather than hourly rate (we included hourly rate because that was requested in proposal)
- Ariane- this is just SD to get us to capital campaign
- Peter- two other notes
- 7th/8th grade is going to move out to warehouse… I’ve started to think about how we brand what’s now being called our “upper school” and whether rebranding as separate program to help with funding- keep this in mind
- Peter- what’re you most excited about?
- Ariane- in between space
- Miika- STEM space, area in between community room, idea of using this new space as hub to highlight student work- students as brand consultants
- What kind of cost did you build in for conversation?
- About
III. Closing Items
A.
Action Items & Next Steps
- Next steps
- Circle back with Ebbrell right after Thanksgiving holiday
- Miika- would this start before New Year?
- Peter- given time needed for Board approval, probably not
B.
Adjourn Meeting
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 8:05 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
William Rockwell